Dive Brief:
- GE HealthCare received a $44 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop artificial intelligence-assisted ultrasound tech, the company announced Monday.
- The funding will go toward making clinical decision support tools to support obstetric and lung ultrasound scans for maternal and fetal health, as well as pediatric lung health, for low- and middle-income countries.
- Caption Health, which GE HealthCare acquired in February for $127 million upfront, will develop the AI tools.
Dive Insight:
Caption is a subsidiary of GE that uses AI to interpret ultrasound exam results. The company currently has a system cleared by the Food and Drug Administration for early detection of heart disease that walks clinicians through the steps of performing an echocardiogram.
With the most recent round of grant funding, Caption will develop multiple lung ultrasound and obstetric algorithms through clinical validation and regulatory submissions, the companies said in a statement.
The AI tools are intended to help healthcare professionals with clinical decision-making, including people without specialized training or experience in ultrasound, with the goal of improving maternal and pediatric lung care.
To put the problem in context, almost 800 women died every day in 2020 from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth, according to the World Health Organization. And for children younger than five years old, pneumonia is the leading cause of death.
Caption received another grant from the Gates Foundation in 2020 to support the development of AI technology for lung ultrasound.
“Ultrasound is an essential tool for screening and diagnosis of various medical conditions, including the health of expectant mothers and managing respiratory diseases,” Roland Rott, CEO of Ultrasound at GE HealthCare, said in a statement.
Rott said the grant will bring Caption’s technology to more users, and contribute to increased access to higher-quality medical care.